A Brooklyn mom was arrested yesterday for smothering her baby with a pillow to stop her crying more than four years ago and continuing to rake in public assistance for the dead girl ever since, police sources said yesterday.

The heartbreaking death of little Devon – who was about a year old when mom Laurne Hester-Bey put her body in her stroller, took the subway to a Dumpster in Queens and tossed it in – only came to light this week, the sources said.

That was when Hester-Bey – who has four living children – called Brownsville cops to report that her boyfriend had burglarized her apartment, the sources said.

The boyfriend insisted to cops he hadn’t taken anything from the 31-year-old woman.

But he had a grim story to tell them about his erstwhile love.

He claimed that Hester-Bey killed her baby early in 2000, never reported the death and was still collecting welfare checks for the child.

Hester-Bey, who is also known as Diatra Hester-Bey, has three sons, ages 10, 13 and 16, and a 14-year-old daughter. The three oldest children live with Hester-Bey’s mother in East New York.

Detectives began questioning Hester-Bey Wednesday. She told them Devon was alive and with her biological father, whom cops didn’t identify.

But the father told them he hadn’t seen his child in over four years.

They went back to question the mother, and yesterday, the sources said, she broke down and admitted smothering her baby when she couldn’t stop the child from crying.

It happened on Feb. 29, 2000, while she and her four kids were living at a Red Cross shelter on Dyre Avenue and West 41st Street in Manhattan, the sources said.

Hester-Bey was smoking pot and when Devon cried, she hit the baby on the back to shut her up, the sources said.

Then she put a pillow over the baby’s face and smothered her, the sources said.

Hester-Bey, pretending Devon was still alive, put her in her stroller, wheeled it to the subway, rode to Queens and put her baby’s body in a Dumpster in Long Island City near La Guardia College, the sources said.

Police are contacting the city Sanitation Department to see if they can find the body, but they believe it is highly unlikely after such a long time.

It could not immediately be determined if she was collecting public assistance for Devon.